Promotion of the ocular health: Perception and conduct of mothers of schoolchildren

Objectives: To identify characteristics and conduct of mothers whose children are visually impaired and attend to the public network of education regarding the search of ophthalmological assistance before the visual screening in the school, to verify previous knowledge of mothers on the visual impairment of the child identified during the visual screening in the school and to contribute for the ocular health action/programs planning, directed to the visually impaired children rehabilitation. Material and Methods: A descriptive transversal survey was done. A not probabilistic sample was studied, gotten from a ophthalmological screening program applied in students at São Paulo city, Brazil. A questionnaire for interview was applied. Results: The sample was constituted by 50 mothers, whose children were between 8 and 14 years old, inserted in the public network basic education. Great parcel of mothers completed basic education (22.0%), the majority lives with husband/companion(72.0%). Related to the professional exercise, 38.0% said to work professionally, where the not specialized manual services had predominated (26.0%). The majority of the mothers (64.0%) knew the visual difficulty of their children, where the school teacher was the responsible for the identification of this visual difficulty in 44,0% of the cases. However, 72.0% of the mothers had only brought their children to the ophthalmologic attendance during the Campaign. In 77,0% of the cases it was prescribed eyeglasses. Conclusion: The majority of the mothers knew the visual difficulty of their children, in the majority of the cases the school teacher was the responsible for the identification, the school visual screening Campaign had an important role in the identification and eyeglasses prescription to the students, contributing for ocular health actions.